A voluntary water conservation advisory issued by City Corporation for Russellville patrons on June 29 is still in effect.

City Corp. general manager Craig Nobles told The Courier on Tuesday the month-long advisory will likely be in effect throughout August and possibly into September.

“We are experiencing extreme heat and drought conditions,” Noble said. “We are once again asking our customers to help us help them by conserving water, particularly during peak hours of usage. We are asking our customers to avoid outside water usage during the hours of 5-10 a.m. and 5-10 p.m.”

Noble said the utility continues to be able to meet the needs of its customers and that the voluntary water conservation efforts make it easier to meet the high volume demand.

City Corp. averaged 10.4 gallons of water distribution throughout the city of Russellville and its wholesale customers each day during the month of July. That is a total of 268,492,000 gallons for the month.

Noble said its treatment plant is rated at 19.9 million gallons per day, but added the utility company can go above that if needed to meet the needs of customers.

He said the record is 12.8 million gallons per day. He said the company anticipated eclipsing the record as temperatures continued to increase.

According to the National Weather Service (NWS) in Little Rock, the high for Russellville as of 4:10 p.m. Tuesday was 106 degrees with a heat index of 108.

The NWS listed total rainfall for Russellville during the month of July as 1.92 inches, almost two inches less than July 2011.

NWS meteorologist Matthew Clay said the state is losing more than one-third of an inch of moisture in the ground each day.

“The dry heat is zapping the ground water,” Clay said. “The ground water evaporates each day, and then there is nothing to replenish it. That is why we are seeing the cracks throughout the ground.”

The water level at Huckleberry Reservoir was down by 8.4 feet as of Monday, which is four feet lower than this time last year.

Noble said the lowest on record is 17 feet about four years ago.

“We do want to thank our customers for their assistance during the water conservation advisory,” Noble said. “Their efforts allowed the system to recover and continue to meet the needs of everyone. So, we just want to thank them and remind everyone the water conservation advisory is still in effect and encourage everyone to continue to do their part to support the community during this time.”

Clay said the forecast for Russellville is hot and dry the rest of the week. Temperatures are expected to exceed 110 degrees and there is a slight chance of possible scattered showers on Thursday and Friday, but no significant rainfall is expected.